In France. . .

o   Warriors, Courtiers and Saints:  The Etchings of Jacques Callot is the title of the exhibit at the Stanford University Cantor Center through February 15, 2016.  During his brief career, Jacques Callot (1592-1635) challenged the old assumption that printmakers were incapable of inventing original compositions by creating elegant, expressive prints.  This exhibition features a selection of 16 prints that demonstrate Callot's remarkable range ~ from recording the horrors of war to rendering whimsical landscapes, formal courtly scenes, and somber religious subjects ~ all in his light and fluid style.  Further information at http://museum.stanford.edu/

o   For anyone in Southern California next Sunday, August 23, don't miss the lecture at the Getty Museum at 2 o'clock entitled Fit for a King:  Louis XIV and the Art of Fashion .  Louis XIV recognized fashion's propaganda value as well as it economic importance, and he was deeply invested in establishing the superiority of France's clothing and textile industries.  Art historian Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell examines the Sun King's lasting contributions to French fashion as well as his own exquisite taste.  This lecture complements the exhibition A Kingdom of Images:  French Prints in the Age of Louis XIV, 1660-1715, on view at the Getty Research Institute until September 6. 

o   New York's Frick Collection will present From Sèvres to Fifth Avenue:  French Porcelain at the Frick Collection through April 24, 2016. More information at www.frick.org.

o   The Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles is the venue for The French Connection, a concert featuring the Los Angeles Philharmonic that will include Mozart's Symphony No. 31 Paris, Ibert's Hommage à Mozart, Haydn's Symphony No. 85 La Reine, and Poulenc's Organ Concerto.  August 25 only.  Details at www.hollywoodbowl.com.

o   The Bullock Museum in Austin, Texas, will host the exhibit La Belle: The Ship that Changed History a presentation of the reassembled remains of a 17th century French vessel that sank off the Texas coast, the result of a failed expedition led by explorer René-Robert Cavelier.  Opened August 8.  Information at www.thestoryoftexas.com.

THE BOOKSHELF:   A Passion for Paris - Romanticism and Romance in the City of Light

                                                                                                                                                                                           a book by David Downie


This is the second of David Downie's books that we've read and enjoyed.  We reviewed Paris, Paris back in 2011, and this book is certainly as interesting and perhaps revealing more about our favorite city.  David Downie has a way of weaving  the lives of people who lived long ago into today's life experiences ~  people of different times who shared the same streets, neighborhoods and special places in Paris.  His ability to capture you, until you find you've read several chapters without realizing it, says much about his talent as a storyteller and his ability to make history truly come alive.

There are chapter titles such as 'A Drunken Boat, A Starving Writer, and Two Giant Clarinets'.  Who could resist delving into that one?  But the author begins with his life in San Francisco and about his idol, Nadar, the photographer (and hot-air balloonist) whose given name was Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, and whose 19th century life in Paris was calling him.  It was in April of 1986 that David Downie arrived in Paris to begin his search for all those places and the romantic men and women who were in Nadar's photos from the 1800s.

He realized early that those people who wrote novels about Paris, who photographed Paris, and who wrote music about Paris didn't make Paris romantic;  they made people think Paris was romantic.  So, the author set out to search for the romantic secrets of the City of Light.  This book takes us along.

Perhaps most appropriately, he began at Père-Lachaise Cemetery which is, for those of you who have had the pleasure of visiting know, a place where you can visit almost anyone who was anyone in French society, theatre, the art world and beyond.  They are there, and when you are there, you feel their presence.

When you read this book, you will see Paris through David Downie's eyes.  He writes about today's effort to 'standardize' the world, "dethroning the French language, French culture, French food, French national identity...." or that's what so many French believe.  UNESCO is lobbied to place French cuisine and the French way of eating on its list of World Heritage 'intangibles'.  He writes about the French penchant for protecting their rights and their freedom ~ women's rights, sexual freedom, freedom to organize workers, and strike "against the one percent who don't pay taxes" ~ and everyone fights for those rights!

In his quest for Paris' romanticism,  the author tells us that the modern Romantic Age began in 1830 by a group of French Romantics, having met each Sunday throughout the 1820s near Place de la Bastille at the Arsenal Library.  Downie declares that France and the United States are both "children of the Age of Enlightenment and revolutions", and that it explains why Americans feel Paris is pulling them.  His time spent at the Arsenal Library was discovering who the Romantics were.  He writes about Victor and Adèle Hugo and her infidelity and his mistress, Juliette, at some length; he writes scathingly about Napoléon III about his hidden agenda for modernizing Paris (His view of Napoléon III and Haussmann is exactly the opposite of Stéphane Kirkland whose book we reviewed in our last issue.  To each his own.); of Balzac and Baudelaire and of the many secrets and secret lives the famous led in 19th century France.

What is most impressive about Downie is how well he knows Paris.  Its seems he knows every street, every park no matter how small, every statue and what took place in every neighborhood.   He notices and appreciates architecture, and he ties that and all his knowledge of Romantic Paris into what is going on today ~ such as the 'love locks' on the bridges over the Seine which the city is now removing. 

In Part Five of the book entitled Romantic Romps, the author focuses on the renowned George Sand, "the Great Woman of the Age of Romanticism" and a most prolific writer; we read of her relationship with Chopin, her home in Nohant,  all the time she spent in the Luxembourg Gardens, and the many secrets about her 'romantic' life.  He tells of the artist Delacroix in Paris and at his studio at George Sand's home in Nohant where his palette, paint boxes and his collection of memorabilia brought back from Morocco are preserved.  Walk with the author along the Seine as he points out that which you may not have seen before or visit the café that inspired Dumas to pen The Three Musketeers ~ where Comte d'Artagnan lived for fourteen years.

Page after page the reader is offered something fascinating, a new perspective, and a better understanding of how Romantic Paris came to be.  It is probably worth taking the book along on walks through this incredible City of Light so you won't miss anything!

A Passion for Paris - Romanticism and Romance in the City of Light is published by St Martin's Press, New York
Copyright 2015 by David Downie  ISBN 978-1-250-04315-3 (hardcover) and ISBN 978-1-4668-4125-3 (e-book)